Free the Panchen Lama

On 25 April 1995, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima turned six years old. Barely a month later, he became the world’s youngest political prisoner.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is the Panchen Lama, the second highest authority in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama.

To many Tibetan people, he is a figure who commands deep respect and reverence. To the Chinese government, which has occupied Tibet since invading it in 1950, the young Panchen Lama was a potential threat to their rule.

Take immediate action

Write an email to China's Minister of Justice, demanding he give us answers on the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima. Read below for more information on the Panchen Lama.

Who is the Panchen Lama?

The Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism, second only to the Dalai Lama himself. Perhaps his most important job is the role he plays in recognising the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, who then in turn finds the reincarnated Panchen Lama. This tradition has endured for centuries.

The previous Panchen Lama (Lobsang Trinley Lhundrup Choekyi Gyaltsen) spoke out against Chinese rule many times and wrote a report chronicling Tibet's famines in the 1960s. As a result, he spent more than eight years in jail and died in suspicious circumstances in 1989.

In 1995 a list of possible candidates for the next Panchen Lama was sent to the Dalai Lama (living in exile in India), and on 15 May he announced that Gedhun had been recognised as the 11th Panchen Lama. Two days later, the Chinese government abducted the child and his family. None of them have ever been seen or heard from again.

Why was he kidnapped?

The Chinese government rejected the Dalai Lama's candidate as "illegal and invalid" and, six months after Gedhun's abduction, China announced that it had found the "real" reincarnation. They named Gyaltsen Norbu, a Tibetan boy and the son of two Communist Party members, as the Panchen Lama.

Since his selection, Gyaltsen, who lives in Beijing, has only rarely visited Tibet. His visits are carefully stage-managed and heavily policed and Tibetans still refer to him as the 'Panchen Zuma', or 'false Panchen'.

Gyaltsen Norbu is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a top advisory body to China's government and a senior figure in China’s state-run Buddhist Association. In a speech in 2015, he vowed to uphold "national unity" - the Chinese government's term for opposing any change in Tibet's status.

The abduction and replacement of the Panchen Lama is part of China's efforts to 'stabilise' Tibet by controlling its religion and breaking the Dalai Lama's influence. Not only are they attempting to use their puppet Panchen Lama to control and influence Tibetans today, but when the time comes to find the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama they will use him to try and legitimise the appointment of their own pro-China candidate as the next leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

Where is the Panchen Lama now?

The location of the Panchen Lama is one of China’s most tightly-guarded secrets, one that they refuse to share. Despite Beijing’s claims that he is safe and does not want to be disturbed, Tibetans continue to demand to know where he is. Even after China appointed their own, pro-Chinese Panchen Lama, Tibetans have never forgotten Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.

In May 1996, China admitted that Gedhun and his family were being held at a secret location and China's ambassador to the UN claimed that, "(Gedhun) has been put under the protection of the government at the request of his parents." He did not say where Gedhun was being held.

In February 1998, American clerics visiting Tibet were told that Gedhun was in Beijing, but in March 1998, the vice governor of Tibetan Autonomous Region Yang Chuantang told Austrian delegates that he was actually living in Lhari - the place of his birth. In April 1998, a third location was put forward when a British journalist was told that Gedhun was studying, possibly in Gansu Province.